Know when to fold ’em

A triad of influences hit me recently and resulted in a somewhat unsatisfying conclusion: Sometimes love just ain’t enough.

The first influence was GRIT: The POWER of PASSION and PERSEVERANCE by Angela Duckworth. Duckworth’s words and discoveries have been rolling around in my head A LOT as I’ve made my way through the book these past few weeks.

And if you know anything at all about me, you already know that Simon Sinek and his work are a huge influence in my life. I get a hit of Simon every day through quotes delivered to my inbox. (Scroll to the bottom of his homepage to sign up for these). I received a quote recently that really affected me and has become somewhat of a guidepost for me and what I do:

The best ideas are honest ones. Ones born out of experience. Once that originated to help a few but ended up helping many.

And finally there’s Kenny Rogers and his damn song “The Gambler”. I grew up listening and singing along to Kenny Rogers tapes. Yes. I said tapes. As in cassette tapes. For anyone under 35, you can see one of these crazy contraptions here.

Anyhoo, in Kenny’s song he tells the story of a card player learning lessons from a seasoned gambler (thus, the title of the song). The lyrics tell the whole story of the interaction, but the part most people know is the chorus…

You’ve got to know when to hold ’em
Know when to fold ’em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run
You never count your money
When you’re sittin’ at the table
There’ll be time enough for countin’
When the dealin’s done

Like most worthwhile things in life, owning and growing a business takes grit. Grit is built through passion and persevering through failure. Letting failure be a teacher. While reading Duckworth’s book has helped me realize that I haven’t failed nearly enough in my life (something I knew somewhere deep down…perfectionist much?) building a business takes grit. I have grit. I want to grow my grit, but I have a fair amount already.

I have cultivated grit because I’m passionate about what I do. Which brings me to the point. Finally.

I created something called Get Your Shit Together (GYST) because I encountered a small group of people in my ripple that wanted help, um, getting their shit together. What originated as a free weekly video call for 12-weeks became a full blown class full of life-changing content and homework. I can say that about the content because it’s content that changed my life.

GYST became more than an unexpected class. It became a place to try and fail and ask for help. It became a community. A little one, but a dedicated one.

GYST was born out of my lifelong experience and passion around creating order and moving dreams, goals and ideas forward. It was an honest endeavor that turned into something bigger than I had expected.

So I decided to actually offer it as a class. Twice. I offered it up twice and do you know how many people signed up?

Zero.

Do you know how many people inquired?

One. Kinda.

As gritty as I am and as passionate as I am, I had to look at what the data (lack of response) was saying to me.

So, I decided to fold ‘em. I put my GYST class on the shelf…for now. I pulled all marketing for my class that was supposed to start next week. It was a hard call to make (thank goodness I could talk it through with my own coach to help me figure it all out), but I felt relief when I made the decision.

Not because I don’t love the GYST class. I do. But somehow I must have sensed somewhere within me that it wasn’t time for it…yet.

I will find a way to teach this content. In fact, I already am. I’m currently rolling it out to all of my individual private coaching clients and it’s creating a cool shift in how they engage in their business and life.

The GYST website is still live and it will remain live so that people can express interest when they are ready. But this particular way of sharing this with the world, the class, is shelved.